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EU referendum: Government plays down vote rebellion | |
(40 minutes later) | |
Michael Gove has told the BBC the vote on the EU referendum was "not a humiliation" for the Conservatives. | Michael Gove has told the BBC the vote on the EU referendum was "not a humiliation" for the Conservatives. |
In total, 81 Tory MPs, including two tellers, defied the whips, two actively abstained by voting both ways and a further 12 are known not to have voted. | |
The education secretary said that the government and MPs were "united" behind a goal to get back powers from Europe. | The education secretary said that the government and MPs were "united" behind a goal to get back powers from Europe. |
He denied there were "convulsions" in the party and said disagreements had been conducted with "cordiality". | He denied there were "convulsions" in the party and said disagreements had been conducted with "cordiality". |
The backbench motion - prompted after a petition was signed by more than 100,000 people - was defeated by 483 votes to 111, after all Tory, Lib Dem and Labour MPs had been instructed to oppose it. | |
'Significant number' | |
It called for a referendum on whether the UK should stay in the EU, leave it or renegotiate its membership. | |
Mr Cameron told MPs that launching legislation for a referendum could be disastrous at the current "moment of economic crisis". | |
As well as the 81 who supported the referendum motion, two MPs - Mike Wetherley and Ian Stewart - actively abstained by voting in both the yes and no lobbies. A further 12 MPs did not vote - including Foreign Secretary William Hague who left the debate early to travel to Australia. | |
It was the biggest rebellion against a Conservative prime minister over Europe - the previous largest was in 1993, when 41 MPs defied John Major on the Maastricht Treaty. | |
But Mr Gove told BBC Radio 4's Today programme that while there were a "significant number" of rebels - the differences between them and the Conservative frontbench were not significant and could be "exaggerated". | |
"It was a very precisely worded motion which allowed a number of people like myself, who are passionate Eurosceptics, to say: Look, I disagree with the tactics but we agree on the ultimate goal. | "It was a very precisely worded motion which allowed a number of people like myself, who are passionate Eurosceptics, to say: Look, I disagree with the tactics but we agree on the ultimate goal. |
"If you have a disagreement about tactics... and if you have that disagreement conducted with cordiality and good manners on all sides then I don't think it leads to the sorts of convulsions that many people want it to." | |
He said the prime minister "wants to refashion our relationship with the European Union" and was "committed" to taking back powers to boost economic growth in the UK. | |
"It's not a humiliation. What we have is a coalition and because we have a coalition, all parties need to compromise in the national interest." | |
Three-line whip | |
Mr Gove said the Liberal Democrats agreed that there had to be a look at the "balance of competencies" between Britain and the EU - and he said some aspects of employment law should be repatriated. | |
Pressed on when powers might be brought back to the UK, he said it would be wrong to explain "tactics" in advance of negotiations but added: "I'd like to see that change in this Parliament." | |
Conservative backbenchers voiced their dismay at the three-line whip in Monday's vote - the strongest order a party can give - which meant any Conservative MP who voted against the government would be expected to resign from government jobs. | |
Two Parliamentary private secretaries, Stewart Jackson and Adam Holloway, rebelled. Mr Holloway resigned while Mr Jackson was sacked from the unpaid government post. | |
One Liberal Democrat MP, Adrian Sanders, defied his party's leadership and voted for a referendum. | |
Labour leader Ed Miliband also saw 19 Labour MPs rebel, including Frank Field, Kate Hoey, Jon Cruddas and Graham Stringer. | |
Caroline Lucas, the only Green MP in the Commons, also voted for the motion, as did all eight DUP MPs and independent Lady Sylvia Hermon. |